About the Course Instructor: How I Started My SEO Writing Career

AUTHOR
BIO

At
some point, most who take one of my e-courses or read any of my
ebooks get around to asking me about my background, so I just decided
to include it with this course material.

My
Story

I
worked for a large legal publishing firm in New York City from 1987
to 1997 (Matthew Bender, which went on to become part of the infamous LexisNexis corporation). I left to pursue other career options twice (real estate and
acting) – and was rehired – twice.

My
employer was always happy to rehire me because I was a dedicated
worker. One lesson I learned from this is to never burn bridges,
because you never know when you will need to cross them again.
Remember this, because it’s played a major part in my success as a
freelance writer – and will in yours too!

In
1997, I left the publishing company for good – to go into business
with my sister. We had both worked at this firm. In
fact, she got me the job there when we were both in college in New
York (she at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and me at Hunter) .

A
few years after I started working at the company, we started to take
on outsource projects for them. We were paid separately for these
jobs. Eventually, we started to make more on these freelance side
projects than we were making as full-time employees. So, my sister
left the firm and started Inkwell Editorial. This was in 1996.

My
First Editorial Business: How I Started

When
we felt that the business could support two salaries, I quit and came
aboard. This was in late 1997.

Inkwell
Editorial began as an editorial outsource company. We took on
copy editing, coding (SGML), word processing and proofreading projects
from companies and individuals alike. We eventually added a resume
division and a division devoted to creative types and their projects
(ie, typing up screen and stage plays, novels and TV scripts).

When
we started Inkwell Editorial, our former employer gave us a lot of
business. This is what I mean by don’t burn bridges.

Alas,
a few months after I came aboard full-time at Inkwell Editorial, Matthew Bender starting outsourcing the work we were doing (SGML coding,
copyediting, proofreading and inputting editorial changes) to
overseas firms.

Naïve
to business, we hadn’t diversified our income streams enough. We
relied too heavily on one client (our old employer) to provide the
bulk of our revenue; probably about 75% at that point.

Both
of us knew that we couldn’t go back; not that our old employer
wouldn’t have hired us back, but
we
didn’t want to go back.
We had gotten a taste of entrepreneurship and liked it. So in a
brainstorming session one day, we hit upon what would turn out to be
a saving grace for our fledgling new company.

How
We Saved Inkwell Editorial

While
our old employer gave us the bulk of our business when we first
started, we had managed to snag a few other clients – some quite
prestigious: ie, Random House, McGraw-Hill and Kaplan, to name a
few.

Some
of these clients had asked if we could
"send
someone onsite for the day,"
to help with a project because "that
last job we outsourced to you all was completed flawlessly.

Outsourcing Breeds a New Company Division

You
see, we used freelancers to complete the projects that clients would
outsource to us. Clients would messenger us projects, or we would go
pick them up. As we were located in the heart of Manhattan (NYC) –
right down the street from Madison Square Garden – we were very
close to client offices, so it was easy to pick projects up, or send
messengers for them.

Once
we had the projects in hand, we would then assign them to a freelancer on our roster (we had several). We had never considered sending
freelancers onsite, because on-site staffing was something we knew
nothing about. And quite frankly, I just don’t think we realized at
the time how lucrative it could be.

When
projects from our old employer slowed to a trickle, we knew we had to
do something though – and fast! So we made up a flyer offering to
send editorial employees onsite for temp assignments and faxed it to
all of our existing clients.

We
also went through the jobs section of
TheNew
York Times
and
faxed all employers who listed a fax number in their ad (that was the
preferred mode of contacting employers in those days; now of course,
it’s email and social media).

We
marketed ourselves as a niche agency that specialized in placing
editorial talent (eg, copy editors, proofreaders, graphic designers,
illustrators, etc.). To our surprise and delight, we started getting
calls – and placements. This is when we realized how lucrative
staffing could be.

With
only a few temps on payroll, our little editorial agency was making
more money than ever.

For
example, if you bill $35/hour and pay a temp $20/hour, you’re
netting $15/hour. Multiply that by 6, 10 or 20 temps working anywhere
from 20 to 40 hours a week, and you can see the profit potential!

And,
that’s how Inkwell Editorial went from being merely an editorial
outsource firm to a full-fledged editorial staffing agency. While we
still took on outsource projects, editorial staffing quickly became
the way we made most of our money.

I
recount this story for one reason –
recognize
when to seize opportunity
and run with it! This
story directly parallels my foray into SEO writing. I’ll explain
how in just a bit.

Closing
Up Shop

In
2004, I closed the doors on Inkwell Editorial as a staffing agency
for good. The business suffered badly after 9/11, just like a lot of
others. It could have survived, but by the time it was turning the
corner into profitability again, I had made the decision to relocate
to Atlanta.

I
chose Atlanta because I’m originally from the south, had family
there and wanted to purchase a home. Anyone who knows anything about
New York City knows how expensive it is. I couldn’t afford diddly –
that was livable to me – in Manhattan (the only borough I would
consider).

I
was burned out on staffing and itching to try something new. By
this time, I also had a new business; an online business that specialized
in ethnic décor for the home (Ethnic Home Décor). This business
failed after a couple of years, but I wouldn’t trade the experience
of starting and running it for anything because I learned a ton about
doing business on the web.

Once
I moved to Atlanta, I turned Inkwell Editorial into an online
information portal (InkwellEditorial.com) for all types of editorial
professionals. I never officially “closed” the business. I just
changed how it operated.

Around
2006, the site found its core audience. It specifically provides
information for freelance writers (new and experienced) on how to
start, grow and/or manage a successful, home-based, freelance writing
business – whether you write for yourself (eg, self-publishing your
own line of ebooks), or you write for clients, or both.

My
Foray into SEO Content Writing: The Beginning

Since
1993, I’ve been a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, copy
editor – even when I did other things. In my past professional
lives I’ve been a waitress, an actor, a realtor, a mortgage
consultant, an ethnic home décor online retailer, a catalogue
publisher, a recruiter and the owner of a staffing agency – and a
few other things I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

Through
it all, I’ve always had side gigs as a writer, editor, copy editor,
etc. When I began my freelancing career as an editor/writer, I rocked
along for years quite successfully; lucky enough to have long-time
clients who supplied me with a steady stream of work. They kept me
busy enough to pay the bills. But, something was missing.

Most
of my clients up to this point were small business owners who
contracted with me to handle projects like newsletters, brochures,
web copy, etc. There tended to be a lot of back and forth.

Sometimes
projects that I thought should only take a few days would drag on for
a couple of weeks as I waited for clients to get back to me. Of
course, this delayed getting paid.

This
is nothing new; it’s just part of being a freelance writer. But it
started to irritate me more than ever. I needed something new;
something to excite me about what I was doing for a living. It’s
against this backdrop that
I
decided to give SEO writing a try, mainly for the following reasons:

As mentioned, I was bored with my existing workload;

I’d read a lot about SEO writing and knew that it was going to be
lucrative long-term;

In 2007, there wasn’t a lot of competition in the field (not for
quality writers anyway); and

It tended to be quick turnaround – in pay and assignments.

As
this was a completely different field for me, I had to learn from scratch, and start
marketing from scratch. This parallels what my sister and I had done when we saved Inkwell Editorial in that I had to “switch
on a dime and seize an opportunity.”

The
main things that stood out to me when I was initially researching how
to write SEO content was how little competition there was and how
lucrative it could be long term.

Discovering this niche and diving
into it truly changed my freelance writing career. Once I started
offering SEO content writing as a service, it quickly became 80 to 90
percent of my business.

In
2008, I started
New Media Words,
a full-fledged online (SEO) writing company, offering a variety of
web writing, social media and other online, writing-related services.
I haven’t looked back since.